The Corpse with the Ruby Lips

by Cathy Ace

  “Hang on,” interrupted Bud. “I thought Oedipus was all about a son killing his father and marrying his mother. Then, when the two of them found out who he really was, she killed herself. Or have I gotten that little gem from the Greek myths mixed up with some other jolly tale about happy families?”

  “No, you haven’t got it mixed up at all. I got my hands on some photos of Ilona and Kristóf from the family yesterday. She presented herself to the camera in a highly sexual manner—primed for action, if you know what I mean. I’m not sure the word ‘cougar’ was in common use back in the 1970s, at least, not in the way it’s used now. But if it had been, she’d have been a woman with all the hallmarks. Knowing Valentin wasn’t her son might have led to a tension in the household he wouldn’t have understood, but his father would have. Let me get the pictures to show you.” I heard a bell ring out somewhere in Bud’s parents’ house. “Is that your mum, summoning you?”

  “Yep, gotta go. She might be getting a little more confident on her feet, but she’s getting a whole lot more impatient.” He looked at his watch. “It’s late there, and I have to go help Mom down the stairs. Tomorrow for those photos?”

  We said our goodbyes, then I was alone again—but delighted I had so much more to think about as I lay in my half-empty bed. Well, two-thirds empty, if I counted the space usually filled by Marty.

  Worried Words

  “TO SUM UP TODAY’S SESSION then, ‘Sticks and stones might break my bones, but words will never hurt me,’ is not something we believe to be true anymore. Not only can words can be extremely hurtful, but that hurt can cause psychological damage, which may present itself in many different ways. Psychological abuse is abuse nonetheless, and we’ll consider its possible role in influencing behavior to go beyond social and moral norms in our next session. We’ll also consider how it can result in both detrimental and seemingly positive defense mechanisms coming into play. That’s all for today. If anyone wants to talk to me about their mid-course report grades, but hasn’t emailed me for an appointment, I’ll be in my office for the next hour.”

  I’d noticed I was running a bit late with my lecture, so I’d rushed through my last few PowerPoint slides. I could tell the students were eager to leave; it was a Friday, and over the years I’ve learned that even when a lecture finishes before lunch, students’ minds are often out of the door long before their bodies when the weekend is calling.

  Unusually, Zsófia rushed out but Laszlo stayed. I reckoned he must have a good reason not to trail after her, so wasn’t surprised when he sidled up to me as I checked around the room getting ready to leave.

  “Can we speak, Professor Morgan?” he asked politely.

  “Certainly, though I’m happy to say I don’t think you have much to worry about regarding your report. It was good. You deserved the A grade I gave you. Well done.”

  “Thank you,” replied the young man, blushing, “but it’s not about that. It’s private.”

  I paused. “Very well, let’s get to my office and you can tell me all about it there.”

  Once we’d both settled in the tiny space I’d been allocated, I looked across the desk at a young man in turmoil. I didn’t say anything—I thought it best to let him begin in his own time.

  “It’s about Zsófia,” he began.

  “What about her?”

  “I’m worried about her, and I don’t know who to tell.”

  His sad-puppy eyes were almost irresistible, but I felt it best to respond with, “Before you say anything, do you really think I am the best person to confide in? I’m happy to deal with academic issues, but maybe the student counselors here could help if it’s a matter of a different type?” I’ve found to my cost in the past that, because I’m a psychology professor, students sometimes seem to think this imbues me with special powers. It doesn’t. I’m pretty hopeless when it comes to giving advice of a personal nature, so I try to avoid it whenever I can. Except when I truly think I can help, of course.

  “I wouldn’t do that to her. She doesn’t trust them. She trusts you. She told me that. I don’t know why, but she does. So I will too.”

  I respected his reasoning. “Okay. What’s the matter?”

  Laszlo shifted in his chair and broke eye contact. “I like Zsófia. I like her a lot. And sometimes she seems to like me too, but other times not so much.” I began to panic, hoping I wasn’t about to be drawn into problems connected with young love. “But that’s not it.” I was relieved. “She’s doing something in secret I don’t think is a good thing. And I’m afraid it will get her into trouble.”

  I wondered if Laszlo had, somehow, got wind of our inquiries.

  “Could you be more specific?”

  “She has a wonderful voice. You must know that. She told me you saw her sing at the New York Café. Her mother doesn’t approve of the idea of her signing, but she does it anyway. She sings in a lot of bars, and she’s popular. Tonight she’s singing at a bar many students go to, and she told me there’s a record producer coming along to hear her. If he thinks she’s good enough, she might get a chance to record some songs. She’s excited about it.”

  I imagined she would be. “And you think that’s a bad idea?” I wasn’t sure where Laszlo was going with this.

  “No, not the idea. It is the person who is coming to listen to her who is bad. He’s Russian.”

  Laszlo looked at me with horror. It seemed that to be Russian was enough for him to fear the man.

  I pressed, “And that’s a problem because . . . ?”

  Laszlo’s mouth became a thin, white line, and his eyes blazed. “It’s not just that he’s Russian, but he is a Russian who has lots of money, and a reputation for making girls into big hits.”

  I rather assumed those two things weren’t necessarily so dreadful, and said so.

  “But they all end up like shooting stars, then they become drug addicts with no friends, and some die,” he bleated.

  I had to find out if what the boy was saying was true, or just the baseless claims of a young man anxious to not lose the girl he adored.

  “That’s all a bit vague, Laszlo. Come on, give me some specifics.”

  He spent the next fifteen minutes showing me videos of female singers on his phone, the gossip magazine photos of them as they glammed up, then spiraled out of control. In a couple of cases he showed me the newspaper coverage of their tragic deaths. “They were all his girls,” he said, vindicated. “Stanislav Samokhin was their record producer. Every one of them. If he likes Zsófia, he could do the same to her.”

  I knew I had to choose my next words with the greatest care.

  “If your concerns are coming from a place of unselfishness, and you are certain of that, tell me what you think I can do to help.”

  Laszlo became energized. “Yes, yes, I am not being selfish. I know I don’t stand a chance with Zsófia—she is up here, and I scuttle around down here.” His hands displayed a great distance between the two positions. “I just want her to be happy. She has a wonderful voice, and singing is something she could easily do for a living. But more than happy, I want her to be safe. And she might . . . sometimes it’s not easy to choose the safe path when you think happiness is along another road.”

  I was impressed by his surprisingly mature take on the matter. Hoping he would understand I said, “Sometimes a person will accept unhappiness and heartbreak in order to achieve their goals. It’s a subject we were discussing just last week, if you recall, in the classes about deferred gratification and impulse control.”

  Laszlo sunk into his chair. “I know, it’s as you said; we all make judgments about what we want most, and what we’re prepared to put up with in terms of risk to be able to get it. Your examples about the risk-reward choices made by criminals of varying types were really helpful in that lecture. And I see how it applies here. You’re saying it’s Zsófia’s choice to make. She’s the one who’ll take the risk, and get the reward. Not me.” He looked wide-eyed across the desk at me. “You a
lso spoke about risk assessment that day, and I don’t think she’s got that part right.”

  “Have you spoken to her about this Stanislav’s history, as you have to me?”

  “She wouldn’t listen. She pushed me away. She doesn’t want to know. Why wouldn’t she want to know?”

  I bit my tongue. Many years ago a barrister in Cambridge tried to show me my then-boyfriend Angus’s criminal record when I went along to support him at a court hearing. I didn’t want to see it. By refusing to face the truth that day, I allowed myself to cling to the hope I could help Angus become the person I thought he could be. I allowed myself to continue to believe my love had the power to stop him being an abusive, often violent, man, with several addictions and a chip on his shoulder the size of a small planet. In other words, I’d sealed my own fate by not taking a chance to be in control of it by acknowledging all the information available to me. It sounded as though Zsófia was doing the same thing, in a different way.

  Rather than telling the youngster in front of me that, sometimes, even bright people can make stupid decisions, I said, “Maybe if we’re around when she meets this man, you and I can steer the conversation in directions that will force him to show his hand.”

  Laszlo shot out of his seat. “Wonderful! Thank you, Professor. I was hoping you would agree to help. Let’s meet at the bar, so we can be on the spot when she talks to him. I can confront him with the facts about all these girls who have become addicts, and worse—then we can see what he says.”

  I stood too. “Maybe we should be a little subtler, Laszlo? Recall what I said in class about the role of rebelliousness in decision-making; I talked about the way some criminals undertake certain activities because a part of the reward is to shock those who have tried to control them. You remember?” He agreed, grumpily. “So let’s play it more carefully. There’s a saying I first heard when I was a little girl, sitting on my father’s knee, ‘Softly, softly, catchee monkey.’ My dad liked that saying, and it’s useful here.” I smiled at Laszlo’s puzzled expression. “It means that patience, stealth, and guile can help you achieve something that might remain beyond your grasp if you rush to grab at it.”

  His expression showed he understood. “I don’t understand why it is about a monkey, because I think this man is a snake, but it works well as a saying in this case.”

  “Good. So, where’s this bar, and when is Zsófia performing?”

  I entered all the information into my phone, including Laszlo’s number, then decided I’d better head back to my apartment to brief Bud, and change into something suitable for a night at a student bar that, by the sounds of it, had a reputation for cheap beer, a positive attitude toward smoking, and no windows. Just my kind of place. At least, just the kind of place the old Cait would have loved.

  I stood alone for a moment in my tiny office and acknowledged the changes that had taken place in my life, and in myself, since Jan, Bud’s first wife had died. It’s funny how loneliness can make you reflective, even when it’s not naturally a part of your makeup.

  I thought about how Bud had never tried to alter me. Well, he’d nagged me to pack in the smoking, but that was understandable, he was doing it for my own good. But other than that, he’d allowed me to settle into my new life without putting any pressure on me to do so more quickly. It hadn’t been an easy time for either of us; he’d been grappling with grief, and then the challenges of retirement, and I hadn’t been half a couple since my time with Angus. As I pulled on my coat I wryly admitted how poor a blueprint for a harmonious relationship that had been, and how very happy I was sharing my life with Bud. As I headed out to make my way “home” I longed for my real home. Someone needs to come up with another word for missing someone you love. Not even the Welsh hiraeth manages to sum it up. It’s the most awful feeling to carry about, and it gets worse the longer you have it. Stages of grief? There are levels of loneliness a person only feels when they realize they no longer function well as a single unit, but require the presence of a particular other person to feel whole. It was hard for me to come to terms with the fact that that was now my reality. Me—independent, lead-with-your-head-not-your-heart Cait Morgan. No longer it seemed. Maybe I might as well have changed my name to Mrs. Anderson. That was now who I was in my heart, after all.

  A Siren Song

  THE BAR WAS PACKED, NOISY, and filled with a blue haze. Ancient stones formed the walls and vaulted ceiling, small candle-lit tables littered with beer glasses were dotted about the place, and I didn’t think I stood much chance of easily locating Laszlo in the bustling crowd. Luckily, he saw me hovering uncertainly on one of the last of the precipitous stone steps I’d negotiated from the street above. He jumped to his feet and flailed his arms, catching my attention. I lost count of how many times I excused myself as I tried to wriggle between the impossibly close tables and chairs, but I finally flopped into a seat beside the young man, and was surprised to find myself facing Patrik Matyas.

  “Look, Professor Matyas is here,” said Laszlo in a tone that hinted at panic. “It is a surprise, no?”

  “Yes, it is,” I replied, smiling as brightly at Patrik as I could manage. Since no conversation could take place at less than a shout, I called, “What brings you here tonight, Patrik?”

  He gestured with windmilling arms as he yelled, “I like the atmosphere, and the music is good.”

  I gathered from Laszlo’s eye rolling that he’d never seen Patrik there before, and I wondered why the man would have come to the bar tonight, of all nights. I felt uneasy about the whole situation, and my anxiety level wasn’t lowered at all when I noticed Zsófia waving at me from beside the small stage. She was calling me to her, pointing at the table she was sharing with who I assumed were the musicians who would play for her. The fact one was holding an accordion on his lap was the giveaway. If Patrik hadn’t been there, I’d have gone to join her and would have dragged Laszlo with me, but, as it was, I realized I had to stay put, or else abandon Laszlo. I made a quick decision.

  “Hey, guys,” I began cheerily, “I can see Zsófia over there—I just want to wish her good luck. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Keep my seat for me?”

  I didn’t see Laszlo’s face as I left the table but could imagine his expression; I ignored the daggers that were likely to be heading for my back and writhed my way toward Zsófia’s table. Once again I plonked myself onto a chair. This time I accepted a glass of beer the accordionist poured from the jug on the table, and downed it in one. It’s hot work being quite a wide person orienteering across a room crammed with obstacles while still wearing a thick winter coat.

  “What a lovely surprise to see you here,” called Zsófia, then she moved her chair to be close enough to me to be able to save her voice.

  “I came to wish you luck, or to break a leg; I’m not sure if that works for Hungarians,” I yelled.

  Zsófia and her three male companions laughed. “Break a leg is fine, but I hope I don’t,” she replied. “How did you know I was singing tonight?”

  “Laszlo told me,” I replied, honestly enough. “He’s here too, as is Patrik Matyas, for some reason.”

  Zsófia looked surprised at the mention of Matyas’s name. “Why would he come here? This isn’t the sort of place I’d ever expect to see him. I’ve seen him at a few of my gigs before, but only when I sang in places where older people would go. This place is for the young crowd.” She blushed, and added quickly, “You’re young at heart, Cait.”

  I acknowledged her attempted catch and said, “It’s busy. Are they all here for you?”

  “Not all. Some, I hope.”

  I nodded in the direction of the only other person in the room over the age of thirty. “He looks a bit out of place.”

  Zsófia followed my glance and swallowed hard. “He’s a famous record producer. He is here to see me.” She leaned in. “The people at this table know about him being here, and a few others too. Don’t say anything to Laszlo about him, please. He’ll get upset. Again.�
��

  “Why is he upset?” I wondered what she’d say.

  “Because Laszlo’s as bad as Mama; they are both like the people who kill beautiful butterflies just so they can pin them in a box and admire them. It’s not fair. I want my chance. I want to fly free. I don’t want to spend my days in that house and just be with my family, or studying, or working all the time.”

  It was interesting to know how Zsófia viewed her life—a mixture of work and family responsibility, with a touch of “imprisonment” thrown in for good measure. So, a normal teenager’s perspective manifesting itself in a twenty-year-old girl. Not so unusual. Was her voice her only way out? Here was a girl whose life was all about words—the words to the songs she sang, the words she organized and rewrote for her sick uncle, the words she had read about her grandmother’s death—and how they had impacted her. How could I use words to help her see the best way forward for herself, I wondered? Was I even sure she was in danger?

  While I pondered all this, the man she’d identified as the record producer stood up and moved away. I suspected a bathroom break before her performance, but was taken aback to see him weave his way to the table where Laszlo and Patrik were sitting. Fascinated, I watched as the man bent to Patrik’s ear, spoke a few sentences, with Patrik replying, then left, heading for the washrooms.

  “I see your record producer knows Professor Matyas,” I observed.

  Zsófia was visibly shaken. “How could he? Why would he? Their worlds cannot possibly intersect.”

  She was right—I was having a difficult time putting the two of them together in any way. A Hungarian professor of psychology and a Russian record producer didn’t, on the face of it, stand much of a chance of having anything in common. My interest was most certainly piqued.